


Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by CypressSunn



Series: One Hundred and One Prompts [16]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, First Kiss, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, like i hate to jump on the bandwagon but pushy sub evan buckley speaks to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-03-17 15:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18968143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: Eddie’s assignment to the station taught him enough to know every 'safety first' speech is for Buck and about Buck and aimed entirely at Buck.





	Between a Rock and a Hard Place

**DISPATCHER** : 9-1-1 WHAT’S YOUR EMERGENCY?

 **CALLER** : THE BUILDING’S COLLAPSING!

 **DISPATCHER** : SIR WHERE ARE YOU CALLING FROM?

 **CALLER** : [LOW RUMBLE IN BACKGROUND] I DON’T KNOW! THE BIG GREEN BUILDING ON OXNARD! [HEAVY BREATHING] I DON'T EVEN WORK HERE, IT'S MY GIRLFRIEND'S JOB- SHE CAN'T TALK, SHE'S BLEEDING FROM HER HEAD!

 **DISPATCHER** : SIR, I NEED YOU TO REMAIN CALM, WHERE ARE YOU NOW? CAN YOU TELL ME HOW THE BUILDING HAS BEEN COMPROMISED-

 **CALLER** : [LOUD SHUDDERING, GRINDING NOISES] THE WALLS ARE CAVING IN! THE DOOR IS JAMMED! [METAL RATTLING] I CAN’T-

 **DISPATCHER** : SIR WHAT FLOOR ARE YOU ON?

 **CALLER** : I’M NOT ON ANY FLOOR! I’M, I’M IN THE BASEMENT! THE BUILDING IS FALLING FROM THE BOTTOM UP! PLEASE SEND HELP-

_**[CALL DISCONNECTED]** _

* * *

The bell rings and the 118 rolls out; fire rig in the lead and the ambulance close behind. Cap is in the front cab, fires off the broader details along with a bevy of absolute non-conditional precautions and team safety mandates. He’s not looking at Buck as he flexes his command, but Bobby doesn’t need to. Eddie’s assignment to the station taught him enough to know every 'safety first' speech is for Buck and about Buck and aimed entirely at Buck.

Buck knows it too if his indignant expression is anything to go by.

“Wanna throw the LAFD manual at us while you’re at it, Cap?” Eddie teases, earning a smile from Buck. “Might take less time.”

Cap’s eyes narrow in the windshield’s reflective glare. “If that helps us avoid a repeat performance of our last 4 AM call, I’ll dig out the hard copies.”

That’s news to Eddie. He didn’t work many weekday overnights. Tried his best to stay with Christopher as often as his schedule would allow. He’d been asleep well into Buck pulling whatever stunt he had, hours away from waking up and getting his son to school. “What happened on the last call?”

“I was awesome and lives were saved,” Buck insists, cutting off the Captain.

“what he means is direct orders were ignored and personnel were endangered!” laughs Chimney’s staticky voice on the shortwave.

“He did the maneuver without backup!” is Hen’s addition, and Eddie’s heard enough.

“I was the only personnel endangered! That’s half our job description, right Eddie?” Buck turns to his partner with a withering pout, searching for rapport. He only finds Eddie with his raised brow, mouthing words the headset can’t catch: ‘ _we’re talking about this later_.’

Buck catches his lip between his teeth, tugs at his collar. Neither of them says anything more as the radio wave voices bicker on over what counted as extraordinary measures or simply extra stupid.

From there they stow the chatter, arriving first to the scene. Dozens of citizens are pouring out of the clogged points of egress. The police are doing all they can to shepherd them away from dangers but it's chaos on every front. The building they can't seem to away from fast enough is no more than five stories tall. Its dwarfed by the larger edifices surrounding it, office buildings and banks and parking ramps. But it stands lopsided, something in the foundation giving way on the northeast end.

"You ever see something like this before?" Buck asks.

"Kandahar," Eddie tells him but offers no elaboration.

Buck doesn't hide his disappointment at Eddie's withholding as he straps into the rest of his gear. He more than sick of it by now, and Eddie can't blame him. Its trouble with working this close to someone. They see through the compartmentalization, through the unbothered, can-do façade. "One of these days I'm gonna get a war story out of you," he promises. And of course, he believes that. Everything's a challenge to Buck.

But there's no telling him it wasn't a story worth sharing. A little less valorous, a little more horror show. What else could be said of a city blown back to the stone age, littered with relics with all the trappings of the once modern. There bombed out hospitals left half-standing gave way to the slow crawl of physics and Murphy's law. Not everyone made it out then.

Eddie had never wanted to see anything like it again.

"Everyone is accounted for on the ground, except for two civilians who placed a 911 call from the basement” informs the captain. "Diaz, Buck, you're headed in. Chimney's running point with the winch."

"Wait, why do we need a winch in the basement?” Buck asks.

"Sub-basement seems to be compounding the structural breakdown,” adds incident commander, Chief Williams. "The entire building seems to have numerous ductile fractures in the concrete-lined steel. We have enough reinforced support to keep her standing long enough for one lower levels sweep. Captain Nash, your boys have time for one and only one search and rescue attempt. After that, we prioritize personal lives and get the hell out of Dodge."

The team acknowledges mission orders, with Bobby giving everyone the chance to reasonably walk away. It's always an honest offer, but it still feels like theatre to Eddie. No one ever takes him up on it. The men and women of Ladder 118 disperse, but not before Bobby makes a motion to pull Buck back, to get one last word in edgewise.

“Don’t worry about him, Cap,” Eddie says right as they're about to get into it. “He’s got me to keep him in check this time.”

“That’s more comforting than you know,” Cap admits.

Eddie takes it to heart, especially when Buck rolls his eyes and elbows him along and they're off into the thick of it.

* * *

It turns out that Cap had every right to be worried. Just not for the reasons he would have thought.

The location was in a state of utter chaos, a gaping sinkhole leading down to the sub-basement. The first sweep of the site pointed to long-damaged and aging building materials. Bowing walls and debris hazards. The pair hooky playing civvies couldn't know what they were stumbling into. Or down into, rather.

“There’s only one way of safely getting to them,” Chimney says positioning the winch while Eddie and Buck move fast, synchronized in their improvisation, working their harnesses with what they've got to get over the makeshift ledge. “The foundation’s compromised which means everything above us-”

“-is equally compromised. We got this Chim,” blusters Buck. “Y’know, I always wanted to go spelunking.”

Eddie ignores him. They’ve been at this together long enough that it's far too late to push their differing methodologies for beating the odds. Buck rides the adrenaline, but Eddie takes to task. Zeroes in and blocks out the rest; Buck included if he has to.

“Can’t guarantee line of sight once we’re down there,” surmises Eddie. “We’ll maintain radio contact. If anything goes wrong-”

“When it does, we pull you out,” Chimney promises.

They aren’t a meter deep when Buck asks “how does stuff like this keep happening?” He’s not complaining because he loved indoor repelling. Part of him probably couldn’t believe his luck hadn’t run out.

“Pretend you’re having a little less fun,” Eddie chastises but only half-heartedly. “and it keeps happening because there’s a citywide backlog of building inspections.”

“When was this one due for an inspection?” Buck presses into the radio.

“Tomorrow,” comes Cap’s beleaguered voice, more static ridden then it should be. Eddie runs through a mental list of scenarios that could cause radio interference; depth, mechanical error, bedrock, crossing frequencies. But it’s the captain’s tone that gets to him. Eddie feels that same tiredness in his bones. They were the professionals. Prepared for and trained for marching into yet another structure left damaged by the earthquakes that cracked the city in half. But the larger LA populace had no idea what buildings were up to code or in the clear. They simply went about their business, day after day waltzing into potential disaster zones while Fire and Rescue played catch up.

And Eddie was as sick as he was tired of entirely preventable emergencies.

“And, touch-down,” Buck calls up, boots hitting the dirt.

“How’s it lookin’ boys?” Chimney radios.

“Shakey,” Eddie answers, “ but the sub-flooring looks like it’s built over rock bottom.”

“That’s good,” says Chimney, “means there’s nowhere left to fall.”

“But everything above us is a different story,” mutters Eddie away from the radio. His eyes follow the flashlight trail Buck raises up the ropes of their harnesses. One last security sweep before they get to work under the narrow slope of the walls, the fissure in the flooring were concrete was left crumbling. If it comes down-

“Help we’re over here!” cries one of the downed victims. Caucasian, male, aged thirty to forty by appearances. Deformity in the left leg, definitely broken. Bleeding nowhere near the femoral artery; so a lucky bastard overall. His suit and tie is dust ridden and he's clutching a cellphone in a bloody hand; he’s the louder of the two, won't stop shouting. Buck wastes too much time and oxygen trying to calm him while Eddie assesses the dazed woman lying about a half meter away. Latina, female, aged twenty to twenty-five at most. Blood down her brow and slipping in and out of awareness. Eddie tries his best to communicate with her as she slides in and out of English and _Espanol_.

"My head… _nos caímos, estoy lastimado_ …”

She doesn’t need a neck brace from what Eddie could tell, not numb, still moving extremities. But she was too lethargic.

“Ready the basket," Eddie decides, readying his rope, "she needs to go up first."

“She’s not even hurt!” screams the man, “MY LEG IS BLEEDING!”

“Sir,” Buck starts, “just let us do our jobs, we promise to-”

“I’m the one who called 9-1-1! She just laid there!”

“The reason she just laid there and the reason she is going first,” Eddie says with the most professional voice he can muster, “is because at best she’s concussed. At worst, she's sustained some deeper head trauma. Meanwhile, we thank you for your gentlemanly patience over your minor crushing injury.”

The irate man doesn’t say another word but it's a good sign the man has enough blood circulating to get that red-face. It must help that Buck has stopped the bleeding and his own barely suppressed chuckling.

Eddie had no patience or respect for men who put themselves above women or children. Call him old fashioned. Blame his upbringing by one stoic man and an army of women. But head injury or no, that poor woman was always going first.

Eddie has her hooked into the basket before he gives the signal, automatic winch could slowly pulling them up in what little space allowed. He only had a moment's confirmation she's unhitched and into Chimney’s waiting arms before it happens.

Before the foundation shifts and the ceiling dips and the world folds under a thunderous rumble that almost blows out Eddie’s eardrums. He remembers falling. He remembers Buck calling his name.

* * *

As with most disasters, it’s over fast. First, there’s dirt and metal everywhere, clangor and banging. He feels he's free falling until he’s not, hitting the deck hard enough to see stars in the darkness. He comes to fast enough to crawl, to heave, to dive after Buck. The same way Buck is diving to cover their injured victim but somehow Buck gets it in his head he needs to protect Eddie as well. It’s Eddie that ends up on top, hauling Buck by the shoulder. He forces him under his own body as the weight funnels in from the collapse above.

The seconds stretch into years. Buck’s harsh breathing the only thing anchoring Eddie’s rocketing pulse.

Nothing else moves. Eddie risks taking a look.

There’s a shaft of concrete wedged above them. Balanced on it lay rods of steel and debris. It would have broken Eddie’s back if it hadn’t gotten caught between a boulder of cement and the wall. Eddie feels Buck patting him down, hands moving from head to toe. It is only when he's satisfied that he attends their victim, now silent and still from fear, not injury. It's against protocol to put fellow servicemen above civilian care, but Eddie can’t call him out on it. He’s too busy cataloging Buck’s every movement right back, looking for any sign of pain.

“All three of us are accounted for. Line of sight is compromised,” Eddie radios up. “Chim, did you make it out?”

“Yeah, we’re clear! Other rigs are arriving but the building’s in worse shape than we imagined-” Chimney’s voice fritzed out, errant consonants filtering in and out.

“Chim, can you hear us? We’re pinned under debris with little to no maneuverability. Our harnesses are caught!"

“Just hold tight,” comes the Cap’s voice. Eddie can hear a hint of fear powered over by determination. As far as commanding officers go, Bobby Nash is the best Eddie's ever worked under. If nothing else he alone is why Eddie doesn’t count them out just yet.

“Help is coming,” Eddie assures the victim.

He quivers, looks like he might be praying. “How though?” he askes. And what he lacked in chivalry he could at least compensate for in simple eyesight. Above them, the opening in the ceiling is half clogged with rubble. Their harnesses are pinned and useless, or worse, a variable worst option. Any movement from them could bring the house down.

Eddie prepares a speech to pacify him when Buck gets that look. That wild-eyed and hopeful look that shines in the darkness. The one that always looked like Eddie was going to hate whatever he said next.

“Eddie, tug on your harness.”

Yeah. He did hate that idea. “We so much as move the wrong piece the wrong way and it could bring the entire thing down on us-”

“Do you trust me?” Buck asks, too sincere and too wholehearted. “Because if you do, you’ll pull your harness.”

Eddie swallows then gives a meager pull. He feels the give. He can't be sure how Buck could see it when he couldn’t, how he has such a different vantage point when they’re so close together. But it's then Eddie gives into the gleam in Buck’s eye and heaves.

A second later his harness swings free. Nothing follows, just dust and pebbling sheetrock crumbling down.

“See, this is why you should listen to me more," Buck flashes his prize-winning smile. "I keep telling you guys I'm right about everything-"

"Are you done?" Eddie asks.

"Not even close," Buck laughs before getting on the radio. "Hey Cap, we have a useable harness. If you can dig enough to meet us halfway, Eddie and our friend down here can pull up.”

It's a decent plan. Save for one thing.

“There’s barely room for us to go one at a time. And once we go through there’s no guaranteeing I can get your harness free, Buck. That’s if the whole thing doesn’t come down on you after us,” Eddie points out, bleak and coughing. There’s too much dust in the air.

“A risk we gotta take,” Buck shrugs, wiping sweat from his face. It’s a handsome face. Infuriatingly so, at times. Especially when it seemed so unbothered by the stupid things coming out of its mouth.

“No, we don’t.” Eddie doesn’t mean to say it so loud. He’s sure the echo of it shakes more dirt shakes loose. “I’m not going anywhere. We're gonna sit tight until we can all evacuate. I'm not leaving you in this.”

Buck steps in close, mindful of the unsteady ground beneath him. Speaks low and careful to him in a way Buck has never been careful before. “We don’t have time to argue about this. Someone’s gotta get this jackass out of here,” Buck doesn’t even spare one glance back to be sure the man hasn’t heard him. “Now I’m gonna give the signal and when they can pull you up-”

“Maybe you didn't hear me," Eddie insists, anger rising. "Is your English rusty? Try this; _esto no está pasando_ ,” Eddie vows. Because this is not happening. He’s not leaving Buck down here without back-up. The ceiling above keens, screeching under its own weight. It feels like a threat from the world above but Eddie doesn’t cower. “Look, the guy’s stable enough. We ride this out together, the figure something on their end and nobody gets left behind.”

“Believe me, I want that,” Buck whispers in his ear. He’s half chuckling while he does it, mirthful in a way that belies nothing close to fear. Like he’s made peace with this stupid fucking decision and just expects Eddie to do the same. “We have a shot at getting you out of here and I gotta make sure you take it. The hell with the rest.”

Eddie grits his teeth. Imagines it all coming down from above. Sees the pressure coming in from every side. If it didn’t flatten their bodies and pulverize their cavities, it would leave enough jagged lacerations for them to bleed out while the dust filled their lungs. And that’s what Buck wants Eddie to risk leaving him to. That’s what Buck thinks he can convince Eddie to abandon him for, smiling so soft and reassuringly.

“This isn’t the time to play the hero. We need to be smart, we need to-” Eddie turns, looks up, searching for words and answers that may not come in time.

“Getting you out of here isn’t a game to me, Eddie! This is-” the rest of his words are drowned out by the groaning crack of the building above. Buck grabs Eddie’s shoulders, braces against him and all his resistance. “Think about your son!” Buck hisses, eyes now dark and daunted while the world continues to tremor. “Think about Christopher!”

Eddie wants to bark back that he never stops thinking about him. Not for a second. That he carries his little boy in every step, in every ride, on every last call. Eddie's walked into wreckage and smoke and foxholes keeping Christopher’s voice tucked beneath his ribcage. Held his name close to his lips and to ears of God under bullet fire and explosive ordinance and still, never once has Eddie ever demeaned his son as an excuse for cowardice, for leave a man behind.

But Buck has given the signal and Eddie suddenly has an armful of one bleeding civilian. Panic courses through him realizing he is being lifted up, up, up. Eddie can do little more than holding on as Buck’s face grows smaller and dimmer. And that stupid grin on his face slips into the unreachable darkness.

* * *

The Cap pulls a hail mary out from wherever the hell he keeps ‘em and Buck makes it out.

He just steps out of a cloud of dust and other hacking first responders, whole and hale and alive. Eddie's exit was less graceful; they'd dragged him away when he tried to fight his way back down to his partner. Forced into a triage station where minutes later he first heard the round of applause. Shouts and whistles from the field of onlookers and evacuated employees. All of which could only feed Buck’s already glutted ego. The uproarious noise has him walking tall, thrumming with life. His too big, toothy smile, beaming past Chimney and Hen and half the 220, right at Eddie.

Eddie should be glad to see it. But instead, he's fighting off an insistent pair of hands and an overly paternal voice calling him ‘son’, telling him ‘he'd regret making it out of that hole just for a pedestrian wound to kill him.’

Eddie knows pedestrian injuries; the slow bleeds hidden from the naked eye. The ones civilians always thought they could power through without medical intervention, making it home just in time to drop dead. Watching Buck chirp and cheer and high-five Chimney a half dozen times not ten feet from him, Eddie’s sure he can empathize. Feeling a similar depletion inside of him, an internal rip he can’t name or place, leaking a reserve that left him dizzy, left him running in the red.

In the distance, Buck throws his head back and laughs, promising to take up some hothead from the 220 on his offer to go for some real spelunking.

“Heart rate’s elevated,” notes the patronizing EMT and Eddie forces himself to look away from Buck. It takes a minute to quell down his own breathing before Eddie gets waved off from his post-call med check. A clean bill of health, but it’s all wrong.

Because there is no triaging this sort of pain. No recognizing the symptoms Eddie could barely admit to himself.

* * *

Eddie doesn't wear his headset when they ride back together. Doesn’t slip it on no matter how insistently Buck points at his, restless and buzzing to tell Eddie how he got out. Letting the din of traffic fill his ears helps Eddie feel numb. He almost misses the update on the injured couple that was shuttled to the hospital by another station’s rig. Because no one blinked when the 118 didn't budge with two of their own men down and out. No squad leaves their own behind.

Or so Eddie had fucking thought.

Climbing down from the truck they’re greeted with more applause for a job well done from the relief shift and janitors and engine techs. Eddie doesn’t care, doesn’t take his proverbial bow. He needs air, he needs quiet. Needs to tamp down on this furious baseline his body is acclimating to. He needs Buck to not comes so close, not to touch him, to stop the playful grab at his shoulder, spinning him back.

“-that was a close one, wasn’t it, brother?”

Eddie exhales. Doesn’t remember holding his breath.

That’s how Buck ends up pinned to the rig with an elbow under his throat. Eddie is shouting, or perhaps it only like he was because his nose is so close to Buck’s that they’re breathing in tandem, that they can taste the way the other breathes  and the words burn out him, “you ever try that shit again, and I swear, Evan-”

Cap and Hen and Riley and Marcus all work to pull Eddie off of him, dragging Eddie away as Buck slides down the metal siding, winded and dazed. Chimney scoops up Buck. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of Eddie, his stare glassy and jaw bruised, body forming a half aborted measure to reach for something. But Eddie’s halfway across the engine house, manhandled into a back room. There the Cap is saying something Eddie can’t hear over the pounding in his ears. Knows he’ll be written up and have his misconduct sent up the ladder. But sitting in that crappy metal folding chair he realizes he should be damn grateful they stopped him, got him away from Buck before he had the chance to do something crazy; like kill him or kiss him or worse.

* * *

The captain cuts him loose with a hell of a warning and a list of chores Eddie will need to pull a double to complete. It’s a lenient punishment for any probationary firefighter stupid enough to assault anyone ranked above him. But Eddie knows slogging about with a mop trough is also by no means the end of the matter. His infraction will go up the chain of command. At some point, somebody with less stake in his career than Bobby Nash will ask him why he put hands on LAFD Fireman Evan Buckley. And Eddie won’t have an answer that doesn’t rely on the fist closed around his heart every time he lays eyes on that idiot.

“I talked the Cap down,” the same idiot announces, waltzing in on Eddie in the custodial closets. He's stooped over grime lined buckets that the night shift didn't rinse out while Buck stands right behind him; body blocked against the doorway light, casting a long shadow over everything Eddie can touch. "They're not going to write you up, and it'll stay off your record."

“How magnanimous of you,” says Eddie flatly. He tries to look busy; moving spray bottles, hose nozzles, bristle brushes, and whatever the hell else he can get his hands on, so long as it’s not the man behind him.

“Ain’t it just?” Buck returns, not taking a hint.

Eddie should have chosen to clean out the fridges or polish the ladder truck first. Somewhere with more bodies and more eyes. Somewhere he and Buck couldn't be alone together.

Eddie grits his teeth. Well, he can be obvious if he needs to be. “I got work to do, Buck. Leave me to it.”

But Buck doesn’t listen. Never does.

“Y’know,” he leans in, voice soft and self-satisfied, “a thank you wouldn’t hurt.”

“Thanks for what?” Eddie fires back, rises to his feet. “For the stunt you pulled? Or for reminding everyone in the 118 that I’m replaceable? Or how many days there are until the academy is due to churn out new recruits? After this, I’ll be lucky if any station even thinks of taking me on.”

“No one’s taking your spot, and you're not going anywhere,” Buck cuts in, adamant, “I’ll make sure of it.”

Eddie can hardly believe Buck could be this dense, but the list of things he can’t believe about him has grown far more extensive in the past six hours. But at least Eddie has learned his lesson, turning around to lug the door shut. There's no use giving another floor-show.

“Buck, everyone saw what happened out there,” Eddie fumes, “and anyone who didn't will have heard about it."

"So we got a little heated," Buck shrugs.

"It was unprofessional, and as far as they know, unprovoked. And I’m gonna have to wear that,” Eddie clenches his jaw, wills himself to relax with the remainder of his dignity. “I’m gonna have to explain that. Because eventually, the Chief will have questions. No matter what you say to anyone. So it’s not up to you, it’s not up to either of us and honestly? That's probably for the best.”

Buck’s eyes are sharp on him, arms crossing over his chest. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I don’t trust us...” Eddie stops himself. Because he can’t go there. Not twice in one day. “Nevermind."

"You don't trust us? Eddie, we pulled it off today!" declares Buck in triumph. "It was 'do or die' out there and we did it. We got everybody home safe. That's what they're going to remember.; that we're the best team Ladder 118 has. No one else comes close to you and me."

Yesterday, Eddie would have agreed. Yesterday, Eddie would have brimmed over with pride. But today wasn't yesterday.

"Get out of here, Buck. Go get ready for your next call.”

But Buck’s feet are planted. His faced fixed and stern. “There’s no next call if you’re not riding that engine with me.”

“Oh, now you understand that?” Eddie all but scoffs. They'd come close to never riding together again and it was killing Eddie in more ways than he could admit out loud. Yet Buck was playing oblivious.

“Look, just talk to me. I'm not trying to make you angry-”

“And yet you're outdoing yourself-” Eddie is yelling this time. He can't help it.

“You're the one picking a fight with me! I’m trying to help you-”

Eddie steps forward in Buck’s space again. “The time to help me,” he starts slowly, “was back in that pit. Back when you were stuck under four floors of a slow collapse and I needed to get you out. Helping me would have been helping yourself! But instead, you were too busy making bullshit calls you had no right to make!” The last of it tears out of him the way a stitch pulled too soon, too careless, leaves a fresh sting with a rush of blood. Eddie lowers his voice, aware anyone could be listening so he leans in to put his mouth and teeth and words just centimeters from Buck’s ears. “You don't get to pull your hero complex on me thirty meters deep, wasting your goddamn oxygen on a death wish. And you do not, you do not ever get to use my son's name as an excuse. Do you hear me?”

“I wasn't using him,” Buck hisses back.

“No? You weren't leveraging my one worst fear against me?”

Buck shakes his head. Doesn’t even have the good sense to look contrite. “I wasn't manipulating you! I weighed everything you had to lose against what little I did. And guess what Eddie? It was no contest.”

There's a tremor in Eddie's hands he can't suppress, an urge to grab Buck again taking hold of him. “You really believe that?” Eddie asks, already knowing the answer. “You need to get your goddamn head checked.”

“I'll take it under advisement,” Buck says coolly, suddenly entirely unlike himself. And sure, Buck was always cocky but this is new. This remorseless certainty where it doesn't matter what Eddie says or does because Buck seems to have him right where he wants him. And all of this is backwards because Buck is the hothead, not him. Eddie doesn't lose it like this; doesn't let anger needle at him. Doesn't let guys like Buck under his skin, close enough to know where his buttons are, let alone how to push them.

“You think this is a joke?” he demands, backing Buck into a narrow corner of shelving and brickwork. Buck isn't shoving him back, just lets himself be moved.

It's the engine bay all over again. It's the pit all over again.

“You don't scare me, Eddie,” he says, calm as ever. Smug, even. “I knew you weren't going to hurt me before and I know you won't do it now.”

Hurting Buck is the last thing on Eddie's mind. Not that it matters; his head isn't the one calling the shots. He's so far in the red he can't even pretend this isn't instinct; an impulse fueled feedback loop heading straight to his dick. There's no space left between the two of them and Buck has to crane his neck to meet his eyes. And that doesn't make sense. Buck's at least two inches taller than him but now he fits under Eddie as if he belongs there. Doesn't make a move to push back or crawl away, instead wraps his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and whispers: "besides, me getting pinned between you and a hard place is par for the course around here.”

And the thread Buck won't stop pulling at finally snaps and Eddie hauls off and kisses him, hard.

It's a head-on collision. Eddie manhandling him, urgency and pressure everywhere. The haywire circuit between them closed at their mouths broken only when oxygen becomes a must. Buck struggles to hold on, finally shaken, realizing too late he’s bitten off more than he can chew. He's fumbling back, knocked off his bearings, clinging to Eddie's control. Manic half-formed thoughts flicker at the edge of Eddie's mind; appreciative of how quickly Buck's self-satisfaction is curbed, left thoroughly wrecked by roaming touches and a possessive mouth. It's that same haste that nearly knocks them over, but Eddie's gets one knee between the other man's legs, anchoring them and feeling a telltale twitch through Buck’s uniform pants. But there's no letting up, unwilling to pull off or even situate himself when every inch of Buck fair game.

Call it turnabout, call it payback, it's the end result of teetering near the edge of something for so long, of Buck so decidedly determined to push him over it.

He’s got a fistful of blonde hairs he can’t help but yank on, the plated buckle of his suspenders digging into the muscle-lined frame beneath him. Eddie can tell he likes it, the way he keeps urging him on. But what Eddie likes is the way Buck tastes; like caffeine and those awful sugarless protein bars that he hides in every unlocked compartment he can find. Tastes like iron from the split of his bottom lip where Eddie scraps his teeth too hard and Buck shivers. There’s something sweeter there underneath that Eddie chases with his tongue. He’s starved for the eager heat of it, for this promise between them that had always been a question of when and where, never if.

But the here and now inside a custodial closet proves tricky, the chemical smell lacing their every harsh, drawn-out breath. Buck splays out one free hand grasping the shelf behind him when Eddie bites his way down his neck and collar bones. They send bottles of bleach cluttering to the floor when Eddie’s exposing his Adam's apple to the wet heat of his mouth. Something spills and glugs into a puddle on the floor. Neither of them can bother to care.

“Eddie, please,” Buck murmurs and Eddie shushes him, grazing his teeth over his pressure points. Nips harder at the expanse of skin when Buck protests. It has the desired effect; the column of Buck's throat falling silent. The only sounds he makes are whimpering groans. Turns out Buck can listen when he wants to; when he has no choice to, when his eyes are glazed over and all he can do is lean back and take whatever Eddie decides to give him.

A hesitant hand finds Eddie’s fly.

Buck's eyes are begging him, please, now, and please some more.

Eddie chuckles through his heavy breathing. Rocks back and pretends to mull it over. Because he could have this. He could have Buck anyway he wanted by the pleading desperate look on his face. Halfway up the wall, on the floor, on his knees. Buck would let him because he's wired for it. Strung out and needy for this like he was with everything else; for thrills, for danger, for validation. And Eddie could give it to him.

But first-

"We don't make suicide runs," he tells him , a little too conversationally.

"Wh- what?"

"And we don't play the sacrificial odds. If it doesn't save all of us, it doesn't happen," Eddie punctuates every word with the grind of their bodies. "Do you understand me?'

Buck gives a frantic nod.

Eddie isn't satisfied. "Tell me you understand."

"I understand!" Buck babbles, "no, no man left behind, or whatever..."

Eddie narrows his eyes, pulls his hand away. "Not whatever."

"Jesus," Buck yanks him back. "This is the definition of under duress-"

"Tell me what I want to hear, Buck." Eddie says it with all the command he thought he left behind in the desert. Feels Buck's body react to it, fall right in line. "Tell me you'll never do it again."

"I'll never do it again," Buck parrots back obediently. "Never."

"And how do I know you mean that?" he presses, and Buck groans. Because he's clutching at Eddie like a life raft, like a repel line, or only thing keep him standing while he struggles for air, struggles to acquiesce.

"You know I mean it because... because if I died down there, crushed to pieces, I wouldn't be here with your hand on my dick and that would have been a shitty way to die."

It's not how Eddie would have phrased it, but its desperate and honesty and he considers the point made. So he kisses Buck one last time, drawing him in to reward him with his tongue in his mouth. It leaves them both breathless and drowning in it. Scorching and greedy, driving for more. The sleek, artless way Buck kisses him back could easily become a fixation, a dependency.  Something he can't he live without.

So Eddie lets Buck slump down to his feet when he pulls away and flicks expectant his hand from his zipper.

"Eddie? C'mon we can be quick, we just gotta...”

“No.”

It doesn't register at first. “Wait, what do you mean, no? Eddie, where are you going?”

“I got work to do,” Eddie mentions with his best approximation of indifference. "And so do you." He’s got a hand to his mouth trying to wipe away the last of Buck or the flush he still feels in his face. But if he looks half as wrecked as his partner does right now, he wouldn’t be fooling anyone either way.

“Eddie!” Buck lurches for his collar. “You can’t just- You made your point!”

"Oh, I know I have," Eddie argues, ice-cold and relishing. And no matter how wrong or cruel Eddie knows this is, part of this feels right to him. His discipline firmly in grasp and Buck’s slipping out of hand. "But I'm already on the hook for unprofessional conduct. And the first time I fuck you isn't going to be in a closet, Buck."

"I'm good with unprofessional," Buck says. "And with closets or the back of an engine, the overnight bunks. Anywhere, Eddie-"

"Don't I know it," Eddie mutters. Hell, half of Los Angeles knows it, too. But the other half will never find out. Because Eddie intends to keep him, petulant sulk and all.

He leaves a faint kiss on Buck's jaw, the closest he'll get to an apology. Whispers promises of when their schedules align, promises he can leave Christopher with Shannon for a night. Could be that two home parenting finally has an upside.

Not that Buck can accept it. He has to make it harder, has to make one more grab for Eddie. But Eddie’s far faster, already gathering up his supplies and tool belt.

“The answer is ‘no’ Buck. If this is gonna work you need to get used to hearing it. Here, say i with me. N-and-O,” he spells out. “November Oscar.”

“What are you- its June!”

“The NATO alphabet,” Eddie informs him, laughing as he unlatches the closet door. “Look it up.”

Buck calls after him up and down the hallway. Thankfully it's empty with not a soul around to catch wind of how one hot and bothered Fireman Buckley insists _this really isn't funny_ and how _it takes the fucking cake for bullshit calls_.

 

 

 

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by prompt #23: Crush.
> 
> ***  
> tumblr: cypresssunn.tumblr.com


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